Şakir EŞİTTİ

This study advocates the view that through the mass media, especially through television, a cultural struggle between local culture and global culture takes place and one of the main areas of this struggle is the cartoons. Intensive consumption of the transnational cartoons by the children, triggers the penetration of the Western values and lifestyles to the local cultures and this situation leads cultural identity crisis and the alienation of the new generations to their cultural values and lifestyles. In this study where cultural imperialism and media imperialism is broadly discussed, it is advocated that through the domestic animated cartoons produced in recent years in Turkey, in response to transferring the values of the global culture, the values of the Turkish culture and practices has been re-produced and this contributes to learning of the local cultural values and practices by the new generations. In this context, “Caillou” named one of the most watched transnational renowned cartoons and “Pepee” named locally one of the most watched cartoons in Turkey has been examined through the thematic analysis method, in this way the study reveals how the local and global values have been reprocessed and which cultural values are tried to be ‘cultivated’ in this cartoons.

Keywords: Cultural transfer and cartoons, cultural imperialism, media imperialism, Pepee, Caillou